M. Mahmood et al. / Asian Journal of Management and Humanity Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2-3, pp. 161-178, 2009 161 Traffic Management System and Travel Demand Management (TDM) Strategies: Suggestions for Urban Cities in Bangladesh MONOWAR MAHMOOD 1,* , MOHAMMAD ABUL BASHAR 2 AND SALMA AKHTER 3 1 Department of Business Administration, East West University, Bangladesh 2 Department of Management Studies, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh 3 Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh ABSTRACT Travel demand management (TDM) has come out as a policy choice for solving transportation and traffic congestion problems by reducing and restricting travel demand instead of increasing the transportation facilities. Using the secondary literature, this paper aims to address TDM strategies to overcome some of the prevalent challenges of transportation and traffic management (TTM) systems in the context of developing countries. It explores the potential contributions of TDM strategies to provide some policy guidelines towards a sustainable TTM system, especially in the context of developing countries. Finally the paper suggests emphasizing TDM strategies to ensure better TTM systems which can play significant positive roles in the context of a developing country like Bangladesh. Key words: TDM, Developing country, traffic management, transportation system. 1. INTRODUCTION It is often reiterated in the literature nowadays to put more emphasis on transportation demand management strategies rather than the traditional transportation strategies which are based on “supply-side” tactics to solve the problems of transportation and traffic management systems (Behnke, 1996; Beroldo, 1990; VTPI, 2005a). In fact, the growth of population, the increased number of vehicles, travelers and freight carriers as well as the pace of globalization have affected travel demand in most of the countries of the world and subsequently have reshaped the travel patterns of commuters and freight carriers in many different ways (Giuliano & Wachs, 1992). In these circumstances, policy makers and transportation experts have opined that strategies to manage the travel demand will be more effective to solve the transportation problems rather than strategies to increase capacity (supply) of the facilities. In addition, the inability of the transport infrastructure to respond quickly to the changing travel needs coupled with the growth in passenger and freight travel may also have diverted the idea of placing more emphasis on the demand management techniques instead of solving the problems by increasing the supply side avenues or increasing the capacity of the transportation system (Hanks & Lomax, 1991). Hence, TDM has evolved as the policy choice for solving transportation and traffic congestion problems by reducing or restricting travel demand, rather than by providing more transportation facilities (Giuliano & Wachs, 1992). It could be defined as any activity, method or * Corresponding author. E-mail: mmonowar@hotmail.com Correspondance